


Acquisition Procedure

by Nevanna



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Character Death, M/M, Memory Loss, Power Imbalance, Psychic Violence, Rewrite of Canon Scene, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29208921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: The surviving half of "Breekon and Hope" has a delivery for the Magnus Institute.(Or: MAG 128, now with more vampires.)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33
Collections: The_Magnusquerade





	Acquisition Procedure

Jon stepped between Basira and their unexpected visitor. Her sarcastic eye-roll at his gesture was practically audible, but when she asked, “Why is one of _them_ in the Archives?” her voice was flat and controlled.

“I assume that he’s here to make a delivery,” Jon replied, not taking his eyes off… Breekon, he’d called himself for the last couple of decades. His mind was clouded with despair, unmoored from its purpose and the link he’d shared with his partner. “A coffin, unless I’m mistaken. He had one of his thralls take it to Artifact Storage.” 

“What happens if we don’t want to _sign_ for it?” Basira demanded.

“Oh, I think you’ll want to at least have a look at this one.” Breekon stretched his mouth in a parody of a smile. “The copper was shouting your name when we… when _I_ closed the lid on her. Could be, she’s still screaming.”

“Daisy,” Basira whispered. She stepped forward again, fists clenched. “How do we get her out?”

Breekon stood his ground. “Tell your pet to back off, Archivist.”

“Excuse me?” Basira snapped.

“She’s not _my_ anything,” Jon said truthfully.

“She belong to the Hunter, then?”

A trace of some new emotion colored Basira’s voice. “Not in the way you mean.”

Breekon glanced toward Jon. Were his eyes reddening? “Your lot aren’t far away, right?”

Jon felt his fangs extend as he heard those words, as he glimpsed the thoughts behind them. “You will not touch them,” he snarled. Melanie was in the library stacks, but at least she carried a knife. Martin was making tea in the break room, calm and steady after a few days without the intrusion of unwanted thoughts and memories; Jon would nudge him away from the Archives if he had to.

“What d’you plan to do about it?” Breekon lifted his chin.

Their eyes locked, and Jon said, “ _This,_ ” in a low, forceful voice that he barely recognized as his own. He seized the Stranger’s mind, digging through centuries of memory; the years that two creatures had spent almost like one, on carts and ships and trains, long before they took over a van with “Breekon and Hope” painted on the side. The faces they had stolen and traded and discarded; the magical and cursed objects that they had delivered; the laughter that they’d shared and the screams that they’d left in their wake. The vampires that the coffin had consumed before the glory of the Unknowing, and the raw agony of Hope’s final moments as Daisy tore into him.

Breekon stared back, lips moving in soundless terror, as he surely felt Jon pull at each string of memories, unspooling them, _unmaking_ them.

The echoes were still swirling within his skull when Breekon collapsed. Basira’s voice sliced through the noise, demanding to know what Jon had just done. It brought him back to reality, and he tried to steady himself with one hand on the back of the nearest chair. “You should… get him out of here,” he told her as soon as he could form a sentence. “However you think is best. Staking him might be a kindness, now that his memories are gone.”

“ _All_ of them?” Basira demanded. He caught a flash of how she’d seen him: a glowering creature whose power charged the air like lightning. She’d wanted to run, to scream, to stab or shoot him (no matter how angry Elias would have been), and even now, she didn’t quite trust Jon not to take her own memories of the last few minutes.

Guilt nudged at the place where Jon’s heart had once beaten. He did his best to push it aside. “He wanted to make us -- and Martin, and Melanie, and Elias -- _suffer,_ like he was suffering without his… other half. Do you want to _know_ what he had planned for us?” Basira cut her eyes away from Jon quickly, and he heard footsteps approaching on the stairs. “I need to write down everything I learned from him, especially about the coffin.” She nodded, slipping into practicalities as she had likely done after one of Daisy’s covert operations. Perhaps she had tried to bury her doubts, too, in the name of protecting those who needed it.

Back at his desk, Jon had scribbled down most of Breekon’s recollections before the words on the page swam in front of him, and the world tilted.

He was next aware of Martin’s soft arms supporting him, of the irresistible scent of his thrall’s blood. A large, warm hand rested on the back of Jon’s head, guiding it to the sweet pulse at the curve of Martin’s neck. On some level, Jon knew that he should try to stay away from Martin’s mind as he drank, but even that was too much effort, and his praise and gratitude -- _you’re so good, giving me what I need, love you so much_ \-- hummed between them.

“I love you, too, Jon.” There was a hint of unease underneath the quiet sincerity in Martin’s voice. “We should probably talk about what just happened, yeah? But not now.”

How much had he seen, or heard from Basira? Would Jon be able to convince Martin that his actions had been necessary? For that matter, was his impulsive obliteration of Breekon’s identity much different to what Elias had been slowly, _deliberately,_ doing to Martin since the Unknowing? 

He kissed the bite on Martin’s neck and leaned into the familiar warmth of those arms, taking the comfort while it was still offered, and offering what he could in return. “Not now,” he agreed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as always, to alliedwolves for all their help with this ficlet. <3


End file.
